V. I. Lenin

Measures Governing the Transition From Bourgeois-Co-Operative
      to, Proletarian-Communist Supply and 
      Distribution[1]

Written:2 February, 1919First Published:1931;Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 28, pages 443-444Translated:Jim RiordanTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert CymbalaOnline Version:V. 	I.	Lenin 	Internet ArchiveMay, 2002

The question of the co-operatives and
    consumers’ communes (seeIzvestia,February 2)
    recently discussed in the Council of People’s Commissars
    involves themost vital problem of the day, measures of
    transition fromthe bourgeois co-operativestoa
    communist consumers’ and pro-ducers’ union of the
    whole population.

Let us imagine co-operatives embrace 98 per cent of the
    population. This happens in the countryside.

Does this make them communes?

No, ifthe co-operative (1) gives advantages
    (dividends on shares, etc.) to a group of special shareholders;
    (2) pre-serves its own special apparatus which shuts out the
    popu-lation at large, in particular the proletariat and
    semi-proletariat; (3) does not give preference in produce
    distri-bution to the semi-proletariat over the middle peasants, to
    the middle peasants over the rich; (4) does not confis-cate the
    surplus produce first from the rich, then from the middle
    peasants, and does not rely on the proletariat and
    semi-proletariat. And so on and so forth.

The whole difficulty of the task (and the wholeessenceof the present task which confronts us right now)
    springs from the fact that we have to work out a systemof
    practicalmeasures governing thetransitionfrom the
    old co-ope-ratives (which are bound to be bourgeois since they
    have a group ofshareholderswho constitute aminorityof the population, as well as for other reasons)
    to a new and to a realcommune.These are measures for
    the transition from bourgeois-co-operative to
    proletarian-communist supply and distribution.

It is essential:

(1) to discuss this question in the press;

(2) to organise the movement of all the central
    and local government institutions (particularly of the Supreme
    Eco-nomic Council and the other Economic Councils, the Food
    Commissariat and food departments, the Central Statisti-cal Board
    and the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture) to tackle this
    task;

(3) to instruct the Co-operative Department of
    the Supreme Economic Council and the institutions enumerated in
    par. 2 to work out aprogrammeof these measures and a
    form for collecting information on such measures and facts which
    enable us to develop these measures;

(4) to award a bonus for the best programme of
    measures, for the most practicable programme, for the most
    conve-nient and effective form and means of collecting information
    about it.

[1]On Lenin’s instructions this letter was forwarded to the
    People’s; Commissariat of Food, the People’s
    Commissariat of Finance and to the Supreme Economic Council. The
    question of the co-operatives and consumers’ communes was
    discussed at the Council of People’s Commissars on January
    28, 1919.